SNPA wrote:Results are heavily team influenced. Cousins was always screwed in this respect and his game didn’t grow as high as possible impact-wise because of it. That doesn’t take away from his massive talent.
Efficiency is also team influenced and doesn’t inherently make one a better player, it can also mean one is a more limited player, and perhaps better at a more limited role.
Lots of ATG’s weren’t efficient everywhere (see Jordan, 3’s). It’s not an exact measure of talent and varies by era.
I'm not sure it makes much sense to use the team/culture/losing environment as a defense for Cousins deficiencies when the Twolves were pretty much in that same class of ineptitude for almost all of KAT's career, an ineptitude that goes back to the KG days. We can debate who had it worse, but I find that pretty moot when pretty much everything indicates KAT is a MUCH more effective offensive player than Cousins.
Cousins' most efficient season was in 2018 on the Pelicans, his most talented cast, at 105 TS+. That would be lower than KAT's worst season. It's lower than KAT's rookie year. And it's not like the help he had was better than Davis + Holiday. It's not about being efficient everywhere, it's about being efficient period, which Cousins was not for the vast majority of his career, and even on a good team lagged behind KAT.
Plus even with offensive help, Cousins wasn't able to replicate anything KAT was with comparable (at best, bad at worst) help. Across the 2017 and 2018 seasons on the Pelicans:
Cousins ON: 109.6 ORTG
Cousins+Davis ON: 109.7 ORTG
Cousins+Davis+Holiday ON: 109.5 ORTG
Davis+Holiday ON, Cousins OFF: 109.4 ORTG
These would be right outside the top 10 offenses for those years, so okay results but not what you'd expect, especially when you consider that AD and Holiday were pretty much doing the same thing without him. How much did he add to that offense really? Let's look at the other guy over the same timeframe:
KAT ON: 115.2 ORTG
KAT ON, Butler OFF: 113.7 ORTG
Vastly better results, even without Butler. KAT has better results for every single year of his career aside his rookie season actually. "Talent" only takes you so far, we all know that one guy who shows up to the local courts with all the dribble moves and fakes and whatnot in the world but can't operate in a team setting. Peak != talent. You wouldn't say Melo was a better scorer at his peak than Shaq because he had more moves and skill.
SNPA wrote:Cousins wants to kill. That’s his biggest issue, he wanted it to much. I’d take that over Town’s child-like indifference everyday. Jimmy Butler and Cousins would be combustible but Jimmy would never leave because Cousins lacks heart.
So Butler+Cousins would lead to worse results and then Butler leaves anyway except for a different reason? Doesn't sound preferable at all.